Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of The Rolling Stones Available Now
The MoFi pressing of this album is a joke. It’s so compressed, lifeless, and lacking in bottom end punch that it would hardly interfere with even the most polite conversation at a wine tasting.
I consider it one of the worst sounding versions of the album ever made.
It’s an “Audiophile” record in the worst sense of the word.
Truly a hall of shame pressing and a Half-Speed mastered disaster if there ever was one.
A well-known reviewer actually — I kid you not — was still defending the sound of the MoFi as late as 2010.
2010!
In one of his reviews earlier in 2008 he had used it to test a piece of equipment he was evaluating. I’m not kidding. In 2010 he wrote this:
Mo-Fi’s half-speed mastered edition (MFSL 1-060) was controversial when issued in 1980, with its jacked up lower bass, icy top end, sucked out midrange and low overall level. I’ll tell you though, as my system has improved, the more I’ve come to appreciate it. It offers outstanding focus and clarity and its portrayal of inner detail and transient snap is unsurpassed. Admittedly the sound is not for everybody.
It’s not for me, that’s for damn sure.
And “unsurpassed” simply means you have never had the experience of hearing a good sounding copy of Sticky Fingers.
Which is sad, don’t you think? Especially if you fancy yourself a “record expert.”